When the Detroit Pistons tipped off against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, Josh Smith was on the bench. This, naturally, raised all kinds of questions.

Why wasn’t Smith starting against his former team? Had Maurice Cheeks given up on the Pistons’ big frontcourt of Smith, Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond after just 11 games? Was this a reaction to the team’s poor start?

The questions didn’t exactly stop once the game got going, as Kyle Singler, Smith’s replacement in the starting unit, dropped 22 points and seemed to mesh much better with the starters.

Meanwhile, Smith continued his struggles this year with an 0-for-7 scoreless night in just 20 minutes.

Was this enough to start a small forward controversy? It doesn’t appear so.

Cheeks said Smith is his starting small forward and is moving on. #Pistons.

While this may calm some nerves in Detroit, the Pistons are still 4-8. The defense is a disaster, and the offense remains starved for space. There are major issues here, and lineup changes of some sort will likely need to happen at some point if things don’t turn up soon.

That change probably won’t be moving Smith, who signed a 4-year, $54 million dollar deal this offseason, to the bench in favor of Singler. But moving him back to power forward? That might not be a bad idea. Smith is attempting 5.2 three-pointers a game, and he’s posting the lowest true shooting percentage and PER of his entire career. He’s just not a perimeter threat.

We’ll see what Cheeks does to try and turn this thing around, or we’ll see if Joe Dumars gets active on the trade market. But for right now, at least, it appears Smith will remain the starting small forward.

They honestly should. But I know deep down they won’t. It’ll be Monroe. Which will be a HUGE mistake. If they can package Smith and Jennings for Rondo and contract filler that would be awesome. Just a thought though.

No doubt, the Pistons have roster issues and chemistry issues, which is fixable over time. They also have an uninspiring retread head coach with an underwhelming history of doing nothing in particular impressively, a GM whose Midas touch wore off nearly a decade ago and an owner who doesn’t seem to understand what NBA ownership is actually about. Add it up and it equals more pro basketball misery for us here in Detroit.

Not much slack there so far. Smith was playing well the first few games but has slipped back into jacking up a lot of bad shots. If he responds they will be a .500 team and get bounced first round, which is what was really expected. Monroe looks great on O, not so much on D. KCP isn’t settled in yet and Jennings is great when he goes pass first…but he slips into chucker mode early in the clock and it kills the team.

Nothing a little coaching, and some more games against MIL, ORL, CLE and Philly can’t solve…really they blew the Laker game and should be 5-7 against a tough opening schedule.

While early in the season, the numbers show the Pistons are at their worst with all 3 bigs on the floor. Literally any combination of two of them is much better. I would think the team has this info if I could find it.

What was Dumars thinking picking up Josh Smith, desperate move to show the owner he can build a winning team. Watched enough games this year to tell you Smith doesn’t have Piston DNA, throwing up 3’s and making 27%. Tell the no brain to take it to the hole!